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DECEMBER 2024

US Global Leverage Weakens As Rivals Strengthen Influence Despite Sanctions

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US Global Leverage Weakens As Rivals Strengthen Influence Despite Sanctions

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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

The United States and its allies are increasingly concerned about the speed and intensity with which Iran, China, Russia and North Korea are deepening ties to challenge American dominance despite facing some of the most sweeping sanctions the West has ever imposed, Bloomberg writes. The agency’s analysis comes after interviewing officials who asked not to be identified, as the discussion of the topic is not public.

The challenge fits a pattern that experts — and increasingly, US and allied officials — see as the growing struggle Washington faces as it continues pursuing what it wants worldwide. Sources say there are numerous examples of such difficulties.

Officials cited the situation in Venezuela, where Caracas has ignored months of electoral pressure, while also pointing to the Washington-led naval coalition in the Red Sea, which has so far failed to slow Houthi attacks on commercial ships. The US and its allies have been driven out of bases in Africa as China and Russia expand their reach, and in the South China Sea, Beijing has become more aggressive over waters it claims.

Then, the outlet writes, there are the allies. In one example, Washington finds itself unable to persuade Israel to a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

“US influence is waning, and it’s waning rapidly,” said Mr Martin Kimani, former Kenyan ambassador to the United Nations and director of New York University’s Centre on International Cooperation. “There are rising powers that want to assert themselves more within the multilateral space – from China to others – and the Global South increasingly has a voice.”

The newspaper writes that that’s the reality US President Joe Biden faces as he joins more than 140 other world leaders in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting.

About 40 nations that voted to condemn Russia over its operation in Ukraine last year decided to abstain on a similar motion in July. Most of the countries have been vocal in the Palestinian cause, including Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Washington’s strong support for Israel’s war against Hamas is draining its diplomatic currency, Kimani said. US pressure for a ceasefire has yielded little results despite the regular trips to the region by senior government officials.

Officials from BRICS, which has grown to nine members, including some US allies, are meeting in New York this week. More countries are applying to join the grouping, which is explicitly called to create an alternative centre of global influence to the dominance of the US dollar.

Countries outside the orbits of the US and its rivals “are seeing this new node of power emerging. It probably contributes to them staying in between both poles, contributing to a multipolarity in the world,” said Ms Nadia Schadlow, a former top official in the administration of Donald Trump and now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “The US now has to manage that more effectively, which is hard.”

Wave after wave of sanctions have failed to halt trade. According to the Hudson Institute, as cited by Bloomberg, China is finding ways to supply Russia with 90 percent of the chips it needs to make missiles, tanks and aircraft. At the same time, the outlet points out that even as the US has rekindled ties with allies to support Ukraine, it is also increasingly difficult to get European allies to participate with additional sets of measures against heavily sanctioned countries.

Italy, for example, has yet to agree to implement sanctions on Iran Air despite being pressed by the US in response to its alleged shipment of ballistic missiles to Russia, according to a senior diplomat familiar with the matter.

While Brussels has taken a tougher line on China, heavier sanctions in response to aid to Moscow could be challenging to agree on, given that European companies have deep business ties there.

Russia and China’s alignment with North Korea and Iran “is of a completely profoundly different quality to the type of relationship that we have,” Mr Richard Moore, head of Britain’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service, said in early September, speaking of British collaboration with the US and Europe.

“The thing that’s driving it – the cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea – is not based on shared values,” he said. “It’s on a sort of rather dark and more pragmatic basis.”

Eurostat data showed that trade between Russia and the European Union increased in July 2024 for the first time since November 2023, exceeding €6 billion. Effectively, the EU’s collective economy cannot survive being cut off from Moscow, and this is seen in the fact that industries and companies are collapsing since the imposing of reckless anti-Russia sanctions. Nonetheless, this is also something the US is now beginning to experience after being initially immune to the effects of sanctions on Russia, unlike the EU, which was immediately impacted after their imposition.

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Vegard

this un mission has been a widespread international rebuke of globalism and american dictatorial hegemony. i especially liked hungary’s anti-globalist speech

K. Lewis

erdogan made a fiery anti-israel speech. i encourage everyone to watch it on youtube. obviously it remains to be seen if turkey actually follows it up with action, but something definitely feels different at the un. there’s definitely a multi polarity that is palpable now.

Vegard

awesome speech

Anonymous

maybe to a veggie dl patch full of cabbage patch kiddies

Anonymous

suckerer s like you shouldn’t be allowed the vote .imo.

Anonymous

grow up will ya!? do you want to be led around like a stuffed pig with a ring through its nose your whole godforsaken life or what?

K. Lewis

hungary has definitely been on the naughty list of belligerents. i am sure there are assassination designs on orban and hungarian leadership just like slovaki’s robert fico. i hope that they continue to move smart and conduct competent counter intelligence. the globalists seem like they’re backed against the wall…

Vegard

“ slovakian pm fico gets a bullet in the mail. months after the almost lethal attack”

look this up. or read at veteranstoday.com

Vegard

hungarian pm orban unveils background behind fico’s murder attempt: “eu transformed in a war party”

article by carlo cristofori at gospanews.net

Anonymous

carlotta and co at gospensations for papa bear.

Anonymous

give it a rest with your nonsense absolutely insufferably dim

Anonymous

oh wake up it’s a declaration of the un’s victory as the one world government . which of course is your chosen gruppenfuhrer just as putin has declared it his .what a crock to cry multipolarity and in the same breath, say as he is on record doing , under the un .

Vegard

here comes the fucktard

Anonymous

veghead et al s usual trolioping dispensation for the brain dead nations.

Last edited 2 months ago by Anonymous
Anonymous

you idiot the usa, and the un have always been rivals you’re so ignorant or dishonest or both it’s literally unbelievable you and the fake votes.

Miles

please inform yourself before you expose your ignorance. the usa is the un’s biggest funder — and the usa is a permanent member of the security council. i just don’t understand how someone so ignorant can be so arrogant and insulting to others.

Anonymous

follow the money its deeper than you think. every donation by the catholic church to the democrats is a direct payment for a human slave.

Professore Saviano

you’re talking to a crazy person.

…or a globalist shill trying to muddy the waters.

q_prime

rockefeller created and funded un. it is a a documented facts deliberately omitted.

jorge

but, but it’s only iran, china, russia and north korea?!?

hash
hashed
Vegard

definitely not. germany is now calling for nord stream to be repaired. probably the biggest blow against the insidious anti-european globalism … also, many small nationalist sovereignty developments all over … many european countries now unwilling to sanction russia or send aid to ukraine. hungarians flat out called out american hypocrisy and ridiculousness in un speech.

Anonymous

you’re so brainwashed it’s unbelievable or corrupt most likely both imo

Vegard

what a dopey, derpy kike. one of the dumbest kikes to ever grace sf …

Anonymous

haha you’re so unfunny honey bunny what’s up your derriere papa bear.

Miles

are you defending globalism? are you a soros funded troll? you’re the one that’s corrupt and brainwashed, friend. just look at the state of things. we’re the closest we’ve ever been to a nuclear war. the global economy is doing terrible. societal culture is absolutely abhorrent. etc

Anonymous

fucktard s right you certainly are.

Southtrash

when the world gets rid of american cancer and zionist cockroaches, we will be a better place

hash
hashed
Anonymous

hahaha we will be in the wef one world government under the appearance of the un .you will own nothing and you will have no say or voice in anything there will be total censorship and totalitarian global control from the rule of law and you’re too 😉 to even see it .

Last edited 2 months ago by Anonymous
anon

nobody could give a tinker’s cuss what the united snakes wants or says any more. it is a bankrupt , corrupt s***hole of a failed state, lorded over by jews for jews. uncle sugar and his satellites represent 12% of humanity, and the other 88% have had a bellyful of them. they can get along perfectly well without that 12% it is the 12% who need them. china accounts for 36% of everything that is produced in the world. , 16 x as much steel as the us.

hash
hashed
Vegard

norway issues global search request for man linked to exploding hezbollah pager rinson jose, founder of bulgarian company that was said to be part of pager supply chain, has been missing since sept. 18

Anonymous

like your “brain” mia since delivery.

Anonymous

only a total dipstick wouldn’t see that they’re setting it up .biden as the only ever second catholic president in americas history , together with his peers around the world. hiding behind a mask of political machinations .

Last edited 2 months ago by Anonymous
Vegard

this derpy fucktard is always trying to deflect attention to the catholics. it’s low information trolling.

Anonymous

haha and you just revealed yourself clearly.

Europoors

the joke is that while the west attempted to isolate russia it resulted in themselves being isolated.

hash
hashed
Anonymous

sure we believe you are not just another veg head fake name

Last edited 2 months ago by Anonymous
jens holm

i worship amerikunt money–all amerikunt worship money—in their ugly cesspool they live in teepee beg for taco fentanyl

hash
hashed
Rabbi 4 Skin

jens you back you dirty pooofter… i have an everlasting foreskin for you to test chew. it is smeg free.

homer simpson

why nobody like us—we generously murder millions in asia me africa latin america..ukraine gaza steal resources luv all lgbt mulatto midgets

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